Londoners will get 5G speeds by 2020

London Mayor Boris Johnson has promised to bring next generation connection speeds to London within six years.

Boris Johnson will announce plans this week to introduce superfast 5G speeds to London as early as 2020.

The London mayor will pledge to bring 5G to the capital within six years as part of a detailed infrastructure plan between now and 2050.

Long-term evolution (LTE) speeds were only launched in the UK in October 2012 after Ofcom granted EE permission to use their existing 1,800Mhz spectrum. The other UK networks rolled out their own 4G technology last year.

However, Johnson wants London to lead the way in the next generation of mobile internet. He told the Daily Telegraph: “London is earning a reputation for being the tech capital of Europe and that is why we need to ensure every Londoner is able to access the very best digital connectivity. Rapidly improving the connectivity of this great city is a key part of the Infrastructure Plan for London.”

The rollout of 4G technology across Europe was behind rollouts in the US and parts of Asia so in order to keep Europe as a leader in technology, the EU announced plans to work alongside South Korea on 5G in June. South Korea is one of the countries pioneering 5G technology and also plan to launch it by 2020.

The UK government is giving the University of Surrey £5 million in funding over the next five years to support research in to the technology, some of which will be spent on what the university has labelled as the world’s first dedicated 5G performance centre. They have already announced industry partnerships with Samsung, Huawei and Fujitsu.

The telecoms industry has yet to set out the standard for 5G, although Swedish firm Ericsson have already hit wireless speeds of 5Gbps, an industry record and 250 times faster than standard LTE speeds.